Freddy vs. DCU? Ain't Happening

Next Saturday was supposed to be the much-anticipated first meeting between Freddy Adu and his former club, D.C. United. RSL officials said they had been assured before the season that, even though the June 23 match was awfully close to Adu's call-up date for the Under-20 World Cup, he would be available to play against United at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Wrong.

According to RSL, the U.S. Soccer Federation has changed course and will not release Adu for the RSL-DCU match. Adu will have to remain with his under-20 teammates at training camp next week in preparation for the tournament opener June 30 against South Korea in Montreal. The complete u-20 roster was released today.

My take: Why in the world would MLS schedule this match -- one of the few non-Beckham regular season games to have a deliciously intriguing storyline -- at such a delicate time? The league also blew it in terms of Adu's only visit to RFK, which will not take place until September, six months into the season! (Speaking of which, United's home game against RSL will probably be moved from Sept. 26 to Sept. 12 in order for D.C. to play its Copa Sudamericana home game against Chivas late that month. United will likely play at Chivas in early October.)

Freddy's brother Fro is going to GMU next fall to play. I've seen him five or six times this year in youth play and he's not ready just like his brother wasn't.
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Fro is going to college, where he will learn and develop in a modest environment. He'll be a good college player, in the long run. Freddy skipped that step. Not to say he should've gone to college, but maybe a different environment (Euro youth academy instead of MLS) would've benefitted him.

Might be just as well it doesn't happen. Gotta feel for Freddy, whether self induced or not, he seems to be stuck at the moment and coming here, where he would likely be tied up pretty well by United D, would just ad to his misery. Maybe a good run at the U-20 tourney is what he needs. That and a "slap upside the head" to quit talkin and start doin

I'm guessing you had a story all tee'd up for the return of Freddy. Hence, your disappointment. I think most DCU fans have seen enough of Freddy for his absence to really matter.

I think Freddy is the Ralph Sampson of the MLS. Ralph always drifted outside and played like he wanted to be a guard. Freddy wants so badly to play in the middle of the park but his size and skills dictate that he should get wide and run at defenders.

MLS blew it when they decided to schedule all of its games during these tournaments, rather take a break. The season should be March to 1st week of June. Break. Last week of July to end of October. Playoffs in November.

Look, the MLS schedule is full of stupid things, why should anyone be surprised that this match was scheduled when it was? Why are we playing in the middle of the bloody afternoon on July 4th in KC???? Isn't the point of playing on July 4 to get fireworks watchers into the stadium? Why has Dallas played so many more matches than everyone else already? They're almost halfway thru their schedule and we've not even played 10 games yet.

I can't say I know enough to judge whether MLS or the U.S. Soccer Federation shares the bulk of the blame but clearly it behooves everyone to grow the sport in this country. It's pretty dumb to put the kibosh on a game that, to at least a modest degree, had some potential to standout from other games. The fact is, it's not too often we have that.

Then again, we may be expecting the league to walk before it can crawl.

Item 1- www.mlsgear.com, the league's premiere website for buying team paraphernalia is plain awful. It's scary they can't even get this right. In theory, they're trying to grow the league, but missing something this basic.......well, it really makes you wonder who's minding the store (no pun intended).

One final thought. Goff, maybe over the course of the season you can compile a list of ways the league can improve based on your own observations and those of your readers (er, writers) and submit it to the league at the end of the year.

KC-DC game has to be played at noon on July 4 because of a Royals game next door that evening. (They're not allowed to play at the same time, for whatever reason.) Why MLS has chosen to play on July 4 when they can't have a fireworks show is another matter -- which I will explore at a later date.

In Freddy's defense, he couldn't legally go to a European team to develop because of strict FIFA rules regarding the transfer of children. Freddy was property of US Soccer when he signed with MLS and it was his only option to get first team minutes. He could not have signed with any European team to play with their youth teams or reserves. This is a fact that is often misunderstood by many who feel Freddy would be a much better player now had he had that type of training enviornment.

I'm not suggesting Freddy wouldn't be a better player, we'll never know. But if people are suggesting that Freddy would be a better player now by training in Europe with youth players and reserves rather than getting nearly 4 full seasons of professional first team soccer here in the USA, then my feeling is that they severely underestimate the level of soccer in this country.

While Freddy hasn't lit MLS with oodles of goals, he has developed into a soccer player that will help the USA in years to come. He came to MLS as a kid with a million moves on the ball but not a single tactical bone in his body (i,e. had no idea how to defend, where to be on the field and how to get himself open). Now it's arguable that Freddy is stil a bit green on some of the tactics of the game, but he is a very good player no part in thanks to the "treatment" he received here in DC by Peter Nowak. Freddy and many many soccer fans might not see the results now, but they will when he gets to be 23-25 years old.

"A Rickey" nails the official rule, however, misses the loop-hole so often employed by under-18 young guns who join club youth academies in Europe from non-European countries.

Many promising under-18 youngsters can play for club youth academies in Europe if their parents (a) happen to move to Europe for "work" purposes, and (b) happen to bring their kids with them to Europe. The loop-hole is used and abused by a host of large clubs and, I suspect, this loop-hole was "made available" to Freddy and his mother. Rumor has it that Freddy received a generous invitation from a Seria A youth academy many years ago.

For whatever reason (of which there is likely an endless list of good reasons from a single mom's perspective), Freddy's mom chose to keep the boys close to her here in the U.S.

The league's getting better but the scheduling is still a bit screwy. IMHO in the MLS no team should have to play more than 2 road games in a row. That's not so bad but you have teams that are in situations where they're playing 7 of their next 9 or 5 of their next 6 games on the road. Until the league can do a better job of getting around those issues I wouldn't expect to see them schedule some of those more interesting games. It's too bad, it would've been more interesting to see DCU at RSL last thursday than the RSL-FCD game that was played.